Guides for using digital tools

The TTS Tool

TTS Reader is a site where students can listen to texts in English.
The voice in TTS is computer-generated, and reading speed can usually be sped up or slowed down. TTS lets students both see and hear text when reading. Many TTS tools highlight words as they are read aloud. This allows kids to see text and hear it at the same time.

TTS Reader has a lot of benefits as a learning tool for ETL students.
The students can practice their both listening and reading skills. While listening to the text, they can also see the words and learn how to pronounce them appropriately. They learn to understand the words in English while it’s spoken in different speeds. TTS can also read text aloud from images. The students can take a photo of something that is written in English and hear the words in the audio. The teacher can use it as a learning tool inside the class or as homework after school.

Students that have problems in reading from printed words on a page, can use digital text with TTS in class and it helps them read better.
TTS also helps kids recognize and fix errors in their writing.
The students can use it from any digital tool they want such as a tablet, phone, computer, etc.

When the teacher is using TTS in class, there are some students with difficulties in listening, they need to hear it at a slower speed than the rest of the class. Therefore, it can be a problem to play class a spoken text. The teacher can overcome this problem by considering the struggling students. After the teacher plays a certain unit from the text, she needs to stop and make sure that everyone understands what was readen, or rather in advance, the text should be played at a slower speed. In this way, everyone will have the chance to recognize and understand all the spoken words.

The Vocaroo Tool

Vocaroo is an online tool that allows users to record, send, and download voice messages. Teachers and students can use Vocaroo in different activities. They can record themselves and listen to others’ recordings. The recording can be download and sent by a link or even scanned with a QR code reader.

There are a lot of benefits to this digital tool. In Vocaroo, the students record themselves in English and it’s a good way for them to practice their speaking skills. It improves the self-confidence of the students in speaking and gives a chance also to shy students that don’t speak in class to practice their speaking. The students can record and listen to themselves; they can take notes on their grammar and pronunciation. They can also use Vocaroo to rehearse their presentations.
Vocaroo helps the students to practice their communication skills.

The students share their recordings and respond to each other. The students can work together in-class activities such as podcasting, online discussions, explaining a process or procedure in a certain subject, and so on. Vocaroo is free and can be used by anyone. However, Vocaroo is a flash-based tool, so it can’t be used from a phone. Therefore, the teacher can give tasks in Vocaroo as homework and the students will do it from their computers. Another option is to do the lesson in a computer room at school.

The Quizlet Tool

Quizlet is an online study application that allows students to study various topics in vocabulary via learning tools and games.  Quizlet lets registered users create sets of terms and definitions customized for their own needs. The user types the word that goes with the definition. (The user can also pick the level of difficulty and game type). This tool is similar to paper flashcards. Users are shown a “card” for each term, which they can flip over by clicking the word. The user has the option of choosing the form of the card to be an image, a word, or both.

Quizlet has a lot of benefits, one of the options in this study tool is that users can choose a term or definition and type them. After entering their answer, users see if their answer was correct or not, and can choose to override the automatic grading and count their answer as right if needed.

In this study tool, users are presented with a grid of scattered terms. Users drag terms on top of their associated definitions to remove them from the grid and try to clear the grid in the fastest time possible.

In this study tool, a Quizlet user (usually a teacher) can break his class up into teams, or plays the game with students individually. The teacher chooses whether to start with a definition or term. By collaboration, each team will together choose the correct term or definition to win, the team that has the most points winning. If the teacher decides to mix up the teams, the groups are randomly put into new teams. This game works by choosing a set of flashcards and putting these flashcards into a format that works for the game. If a player or team chooses the incorrect term or definition, the score will reset.

The disadvantage is- that at first, it may seem a little bit hard knowing the word’s definitions, but then after practicing the new words for some minutes, the various games become fun and attractive. And the students actually learn a lot of new words in an experiential way.